Positive Outcomes for Some Ebola Patients, But the Scourge Continues

“This is not only an Ebola outbreak—it is a humanitarian emergency, and it needs a full-scale humanitarian response,” says Lindis Hurum, MSF emergency coordinator in Monrovia, Liberia, where the health care system has fallen apart.

There is little time to train new staff when they arrive at an Ebola project, the needs are so great, so MSF experts are providing in-house training in Belgium to health workers before they fly out to different projects.

Newly hired national staff in Sierra Leone are trained by experienced MSF staff at the project in Kailahun. MSF has sent 184 international staff to Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, and employs 1,800 nationally hired staff.

Three recovered Ebola patients get a ride back home after successfully completing their treatment. One patient holds her certificate of discharge that says she is free from Ebola and does not constitute a threat to the community.

A 19-year-old woman, fully recovered from Ebola after three weeks of treatment at MSF’s Ebola center in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, kisses her daughter on arrival back home. More than 170 of MSF’s patients have completely recovered.

Staff are trained on how to wear protective gear in Belgium before they fly out. The largest outbreak of this disease in history has already claimed more than 1,400 lives and the international response to the crisis continues to be inadequate.

August 28, 2014

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is scaling up Ebola operations as the outbreak in West Africa continues to spread and a new outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo has begun. The international response to the outbreak is still inadequate and MSF is overwhelmed by the needs. For example, in its first week, MSF’s new Ebola management center in Liberia’s capital Monrovia, was already at capacity with 120 patients, and an expansion is underway. To try to meet the needs, MSF is also training its own staff, as well as staff working with other non-governmental organizations, in Europe before they fly out to various projects.